


Hand In Hand (Against The Dark)

by Krasimer



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Big Brother Henry Bowers AU, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Henry Bowers is Not That Bad, M/M, Mother-Son Relationship, Non-Canonical Character Death, Patrick takes Henry's place as the antagonist/one controlled, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, The Steve Harrington Effect, Time Skips, Victor Criss is a big brother too
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:21:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21538162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krasimer/pseuds/Krasimer
Summary: Henry Bowers was raised by his father.What if he'd been raised by his mother?This is an AU of how Henrietta Bowers raised her son to be a protector instead of a violent bastard.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough & Richie Tozier, Bill Denbrough & Stanley Uris, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Henry Bowers & Beverly Marsh, Henry Bowers & Losers, Henry Bowers & Victor Criss, Henry Bowers/Victor Criss
Comments: 21
Kudos: 117





	1. Prologue

The sound of screaming coming from the Bowers’ home was not unusual.

Butch Bowers was a mean bastard when sober and even worse when drunk – between his alcoholic habits and his penchant for cheating on his wife, most of the neighbors (the ones close enough to hear, at least) knew that. His wife and their son often got the worst of it.

Small towns don’t often care about those sorts of things, however.

Butch Bowers was an exemplary officer of the law, always clocking in on time and wearing a perfectly polished uniform. Those who got on the wrong side of his temper did their best to stay away from him after that. His ability to hold a grudge could not be measured.

When someone made him angry, he stayed that way.

Henrietta Bowers sat, sprawled out from where he had laid her flat, and cuffed the blood from her mouth, cringing when Butch took a step towards her. She’d found him with another woman, someone barely old enough to be out of high school, and he had seemed to turn as red as a man could possibly go. The girl had fled from the room, clutching her shirt to her chest and crying. Once the door had shut behind her, Butch had turned his attention on Henrietta.

“Don’t you know when to stay out of the house?” he sneered, his knuckles popping as he clenched his hand. “Damn it, Henrietta, I am the man of this house and I will not be _disrespected_ like this!”

“Butch—”

“No!” he took another step towards her, his uniform shoes clicking on the linoleum. Perfectly shined, the composure of his uniform run ragged. “You will shut up and learn when to be _silent_ or I will make you!” he crouched down and wrapped her hair around his fist, yanking her head back and exposing her throat. If he’d had a knife in his hand, she was sure he would use it to slit across her skin and murder her.

“Mom?”

Henrietta flinched in her husband’s hold, immediately trying to turn to her son and keep him calm. Butch hated when she talked back but she was an adult – she could handle what he did to her.

Henry was still just eight.

Her baby.

The bruise Butch had put on his stomach had been brushed aside by the people at the school when he’d changed clothes for gym class. A police officer in good standing being accused of something like that?

There would never be follow-through, there would be no investigation.

Butch’s hand left her hair and he turned on Henry.

And she let herself be angry.

They had lived in fear of him for so long, afraid to say anything and unable to fight back.

No more.

Butch moved towards Henry and Henrietta dragged herself off the ground, swiping the blood from her nose. He didn’t even look at her, too busy grabbing her baby by the front of his shirt. Too busy dragging Henry off the ground, too busy grabbing his small wrist when he swung out at him.

Henrietta picked up a pan from the stove and swung it at the back of Butch’s head.

He crumpled.

She caught Henry before he hit the ground in an echo of his father. Pressing his face into her shoulder, she kissed the top of his head. “It’s okay, baby,” she whispered. Henry whimpered, clutching at her shirt. “It’s okay.” She still held the pan in her hand, her knuckles white around the handle. “He’s not going to hurt you again.”

Henry just burrowed against her, crying.

She set the pan down on the counter, hitching Henry further up her hip, and turned away. “Okay baby,” she whispered. “I need you to go to your room, okay? Mom and dad just need to have a little bit of a talk for a while.” He looked up at her, his eyes wide and startled, and she nodded.

“Okay,” he muttered, eyes halfway to tearing up but when he nodded, he smiled.

She crouched down and let him find his footing, glancing over when Butch twitched. “Go on,” she nudged against Henry’s back, smiling just for him. “Dad’s just going to sit there for a minute.” She kissed the top of his head, brushing his hair out of his face. His footsteps quickly faded in the direction of his room and she turned to look at Butch on the floor. “What am I going to do with you?” she pursed her lips, still clutching the pan in her hand. It was one of the cast iron ones her mother and father had gifted them when they had gotten married.

A heavy enough object.

She supposed it must have been the adrenaline and the fact that Butch had dragged Henry into it, but she wasn’t scared of him anymore. She was just _angry._

People disappeared all the time, she thought.

And Butch would never leave them alone if he had the choice. He would fuck any woman he could coerce into bed and he would beat them both black and blue, but he considered them to be his property. If Henry grew up around his father, he would turn into the same person.

Hateful, miserable, a nightmare to anyone around him.

No, Henrietta looked at the skillet again, Butch needed to leave. Butch needed to be gone. Even if she got caught, it was what was best for her baby. Henry needed to be away from Butch, that much was clear to her. If she went to prison for it, she went to prison for it.

She could teach him to be better.

To be nothing like his father.

She hefted the pan above her head, bringing it down as hard as she could on Butch’s skull, nearly gagging at the squelching sound and the spatter of blood that went across the floor. To be safe, she did that a couple more times.

When she was done, she looked at the man she had married – what was left of him – and she nodded slowly.

She felt free.

For the first time since he had managed to get a noose around her neck, she felt _free._ She and Henry would be safe from him, from his anger and his drunken rambles and his heavy fists. No more bruises on her baby’s skin.

Looking at the door into the basement, Henrietta made up her mind.

Butch’s body wasn’t too heavy for her to drag out of the kitchen and toss down into the darkness. There were pigs on the farm, she could go out in the morning and feed him to them. Pigs ate anything. The work on the farm started early enough in the morning that it would still be dark. The kitchen was by the back door and there was a wheelbarrow.

Henrietta scrubbed the floor, cleaned up the mess, the last mess of Butch’s that she would ever have to clean up, then collapsed into a chair.

Her hands were shaking.

Her entire body was shaking.

Oh god, she had really just done that, hadn’t she?

She didn’t regret it, couldn’t regret it, not after what he had done to them.

Henry was eight, her baby still despite how Butch had been treating him. He’d been trying to turn Henry into someone just as mean and angry as him. ‘Man him up’ as Butch had said before. Henrietta tucked her hands into her elbows, lifting her chin and looking out the window. A small smile twisted her lips and she took a deep breath. She wasn’t afraid, anymore.

The anger at how long she’d allowed Butch to reign was overwriting her fear. That her son had been bruised so many times.

She’d just snapped.

Her hands weren’t shaking anymore.

She had done what she’d needed to do – protected Henry at all costs. If they caught her for it, then they caught her, but she would go easy. She’d protected him and that was all that mattered. If they arrested her, Henry wouldn’t be left with his father.

Nodding, she brushed her hair back into a tail, curling it around and around until it twisted back on itself.

No matter what happened now, they were free of Butch Bowers.

And that was all that mattered, to her.


	2. This Outrage Is All The Rage

“Henry? Could you come here please?”

Henry stood up from where he was sitting on his bed, stretching as he moved across his room. They had moved from their farm when his dad had left, moving into a two-bedroom apartment across town. The move had put him closer to his friend Vic. To tell the truth, he didn’t miss the farm – the pigs had scared him when he was a kid.

And he knew what had really happened to his father.

He would never tell his mom that.

“Yeah mom?” he nudged his bedroom door closed behind him, his thumbs hooked through his belt loops.

“I made some cookies for the Denbroughs,” his mom held up a large plate with plastic wrap over it. “Could you take this to them?

Henry’s nose wrinkled, shoving his hands deep in his pockets. “Mom—”

“Henry Thomas Bowers,” she leveled a look at him, her eyebrows drawn down. “Those poor people just lost their baby, you go take them these cookies and a little bit of condolence from the both of us. George Denbrough was only seven, Henry,” she put the platter in his hands and smiled at him, brushing his hair out of his face. “About the same age you were when your father left.”

“Yeah,” Henry nodded, smiling back at her. “Alright. I’m going to hang out with Vic after that, though.”

“You can do that,” she moved away from him, shuffling some dishes into the sink. “Just be home before it gets dark. Georgie Denbrough going missing makes me nervous – I don’t know if it’s some monster moving through our town or not and I do not want to lose you.”

Henry nodded, already slipping out the door towards where his bike was propped against the front steps.

It took a little arranging, but he managed to get the platter of cookies balanced between the handlebars and his lap, cycling slowly towards the Denbrough house. He looked up at the sky, following the lines of clouds. Fall was settling in and school was already back in session, but it still felt warm enough to be outside without too heavy of a jacket.

The Denbrough house seemed quiet when he came to a stop in front of it.

Henry hadn’t talked to Bill Denbrough all that much, before. He’d seen him in school, walked past him in the hallways, but hadn’t ever really needed to talk to him. Now Bill was sitting on the front porch of his house, his knee curled into his chest and his eyes mostly closed even as Henry parked his bike and walked up to him. He held the platter of cookies out to the younger boy, his leg jiggling as he tried to figure out what to say.

“You…” he faltered when Bill actually looked up at him. The smaller boy, so much smaller than him despite only a three year age difference, had apparently been crying for a long time.

Henry remembered that kind of crying.

The kind of crying where it seemed like the entire world was falling apart – nothing felt safe, anymore, nowhere was good to be, no one seemed close enough. He didn’t really know why he did it, but he sat down next to him, offering out the plate of cookies. “My mom made these,” he swallowed the jumping nerves that had him nervous. “She makes good cookies.”

Bill just continued to look at him, face stained with tears and eyes turned a painful-looking red.

“…I would guess you’re getting really tired of hearing it, but how are you doing?” Henry forged on ahead, pushing down on the annoyance he felt. His mom’s words echoed in his head, her years of telling him to think through why he was angry instead of acting on his anger. Right now, he wasn’t angry at Bill. He was angry at himself for not knowing what to say or do. “I mean…You don’t have to talk.” He sat the platter down on the steps between them. “I can talk right now.”

Bill looked away, sniffling.

There were only three years between them but Henry could tell how much of a difference those years made. Bill was too young for most people to take him seriously. His grief would be overshadowed by his parents – they’d lost a kid. Their youngest. Their baby, as his mom had said. Bill had lost his baby brother.

“Your friends are Kaspbrak, Tozier, and Uris, right?” Henry twisted his hands together, tugging at his bracelets. “The kid who’s always sick, the one you guys call Trashmouth, and the Jewish guy?”

With a nod, Bill tucked his face into his knees, his hands curling around his elbows.

Reaching over, Henry patted at his back. “I’ll be back in a bit, okay?” he stood up, strode over to his bike, and got back on it. “Eat a cookie. It might make you feel just a little better.”

He remembered not eating, after his father had disappeared.

It was a different situation, but he could sort of line the two up. He’d been scared, at first. His father had always made such a fucking fight out of Henry and his mom not doing things when he’d wanted them done, doing things outside of stuff that involved him. Eating without him had been the biggest rule – they were supposed to wait, silently, at the table until he came home. One of Henry’s earliest memories was waiting for what had felt like forever, crying, because his father hadn’t come home until nine at night.

Three hours of waiting to eat, of waiting for permission.

He pedaled harder, heading for the one house he knew the location of. Eddie Kaspbrak was well-known throughout Derry because of his mom. Sonia Kaspbrak had lamented, loudly and often, about the death of her husband. Whatever had happened to him had resulted in her digging her claws into her son.

Eddie had always been tiny, from what Henry remembered, but his mother’s overprotective nature had seemed to result in him shrinking.

He practically tossed his bike down once he got near the Kaspbrak house, knocking at the door almost in time with his thoughts. When Sonia Kaspbrak answered, he pulled on his nicest smile and met her eyes. “Ma’am,” he held out his hand. “My name is Henry Bowers. I was wondering if I could get Eddie to come with me.”

“Why.”

He almost winced away from her, a dark thought flashing through his head about punching her before he pushed it away. “He’s friends with Bill Denbrough, right?”

Sonia’s eyes seemed to soften, for a moment. “Oh. Eddie’s little friend Bill? Yes, they are friends. Is something the matter?” Her posture loosened up, her bulky frame no longer filling the entirety of the doorway. “Have they found—Well, have they heard anything?”

“I’m afraid not,” Henry lifted his head, sighing. “I’m just trying to get Bill’s friends together to go be with him for a few hours. George is still missing, it’s been three days now. My mom was saying something about no new clues, this morning.” He rubbed the heel of his palm against his other arm, looking down at the ground. “I just thought Bill could use his friends.”

“Oh, of course,” Sonia stepped away from the door, leaning into the other room. “Eddie? There’s someone here to see you.”

And there he was.

All big eyes and pale skin and nervous expressions. Eddie was a boy living in a bubble of his mom’s panic. “We’re going to Bill’s house?” Eddie frowned, looking back at his mom. “Bowers?”

“Yeah.” Henry nodded. “I’ll even make sure I get him home, Missus Kaspbrak. I’ll ride with him and watch until he walks through the front door.” He looked at her again. Eddie crouched down to put on his shoes, tying them tightly and carefully.

“That would be very appreciated, thank you, Henry.” Sonia looked down at her son, waiting until his shoes were on before tapping her cheek. Eddie obliged, kissing it quickly before turning to Henry and following him off the porch. His bike was stashed almost in the bushes and he took a moment to arrange his fannypack so that it wouldn’t bounce too much as he rode.

“You know where Tozier and Uris live, right?” Henry turned to him as they cycled slowly away. “I just…I don’t go out that way too often.”

“Yeah, just follow me,” Eddie nodded. Once they were off his street, he picked up speed, biking faster than his mother would have approved of. “Richie’s only a couple of blocks away, Stan lives out by his synagogue. We’re getting Richie first, he’s easier to get.”

“…Meaning?”

“Stan’s dad isn’t going to want him to leave the house,” Eddie glanced over at him, shrugging. “With Georgie missing, I’m not too surprised. His dad’s paranoid about losing him.”

“So’s your mom,” Henry leaned over his handlebars, standing up on his pedals as he did. “But she still let you come out with me.”

“That’s because you promised to keep me safe,” Eddie rolled his eyes. “I’m like a goddamn library book.”

Henry snorted with laughter, dropping back down, nearly missing his seat. “I can take you out as long as I return you in the same condition. There’s a fine if you’re stained?”

“Oh, don’t say that in front of Richie,” Eddie turned a bright red. “He’ll make stupid sex jokes about it.”

They came to a stop together and Eddie jumped off his bike and pounded a fist against the door. “Richie!” he called to the upper floor of the house. “Get your ass out here!” he stepped back, tapping one foot on the ground. Henry almost couldn’t believe the difference between the meek kid who’d stepped carefully around his mother and the seemingly barely-contained one in front of him now.

The door opened and Richie Tozier stood in front of them.

“We’re going to Bill’s,” Eddie waved for him to follow as he moved back towards Henry. “Grab your bike and let’s go.”

“Wait, what the fuck?” Richie’s eyebrow rose over his coke bottle glasses. “Did they find—”

“No,” Henry cut him off. “I just found him sitting on his porch, crying, and I didn’t know what else to do. I’m not good with emotional shit and I just…You guys are his friends, the whole Losers’ Club thing, right? I know when I feel like absolute shit, being with my friends makes me feel better.” He leaned on his handlebars again, frowning. “And I just didn’t know what to say to him that might help, so I came and got the people who know him best.”

Richie stared at him for a minute, then nodded and closed the door behind him, shoving his feet into his shoes as he moved down the stairs. Eddie looked disgusted for a moment, watching Richie’s socks touch the dirt on the porch.

“Aren’t you going to ask your folks?” Henry looked back at the house.

“Ah, yes,” Richie cleared his throat, stopping in his tracks and turning to the empty air beside him. “Mom? Dad? Would you mind, _ever so much_ , if I left the empty house?” he wrinkled his nose and turned back to Henry. “Dad’s on a business trip and mom’s out with her friends. No one besides me will be home until a couple of days from now.”

He hopped on his bike and Henry almost wanted to make the younger boy come home with him.

Whose parents left them alone that long when a kid had already gone missing? From what Henry had heard, Georgie Denbrough wasn’t the sort to go off alone and not come back. He’d been out playing, supposedly safe, in their neighborhood. Kids didn’t just disappear for no reason, when it was like that. Someone had to have taken him.

“Okay,” Henry muttered, cycling after Richie and Eddie. The two of them had started bickering almost immediately, but he could tell they were having fun.

Sometimes friends were like that.

Especially in Derry.

Some of the older adults in the town weren’t too keen on the idea of boys always getting along, here. Even if nothing else was going on, they would still have something to say about it. Or do about it. There’d been a young man, a few years back, who’d been beaten almost to death for having the courage to wear something proclaiming his sexuality.

Henry still remembered that.

“We’re getting Stan, right?” Richie’s voice floated into his awareness and Henry nodded.

“And when we’re done hanging out with Bill,” Henry veered after Eddie as he biked around a corner. “I’m making sure all of you get home safely. I don’t know what’s happening and I don’t fucking like it.”

“…Georgie wouldn’t have wandered off,” Eddie whispered.

“Especially not when Bill was sick,” Richie added. “The kid called Bill his bestest-best friend. He loved him. When Bill was sick, Georgie would be trying to make him feel better. I remember, one time, he brought his favorite teddy bear with him and slipped it into Bill’s bed, just to make him happy. He was four at the time – Bill laughed, even though he almost blew chunks. Georgie had said that his bear made him feel better, so obviously it would work for Bill.”

“He sounds like a good kid,” Henry forced himself to talk about him like he was still alive, still there, still going to come home. He couldn’t let the small hope of Georgie’s return get destroyed – the kid sounded like a great little brother.

No wonder Bill had been miserable.

“Yeah,” Eddie smiled. “He’s great. Bill misses him a lot.” His smile dropped. “He was sick when Georgie went missing. That’s why he wasn’t outside with him. He’d thrown up, earlier, and was sort of joking about it being worse than it was. That’s…That’s part of why he’s so upset right now.” He looked at Henry over his shoulder. “He blames himself. Says he should have been with Georgie when he went missing.”

Richie screeched to a halt, picking up a pebble and tossing it at a window of the house in front of him.

The window opened and a hand stuck out, flipping them all off. “Go _away_ , Richie.” A voice called from inside. “I have homework to do.”

Richie laughed. “Come the fuck on, Stanny! We’re going to go see Bill.”

A curly-haired kid Henry remembered seeing in passing popped up in the frame of the window. “Did they find him?” he looked at Eddie, forehead wrinkling, before turning to Henry. An eyebrow popped up. “Why is Bowers with you?”

“My mom sent me with cookies for the Denbroughs, I turned it into a mission to get you guys together.” Henry shrugged one shoulder. “No, they haven’t found him.”

“Bill needs us right now,” Eddie spoke up.

“C’mon Stanny, Stan-in-a-can, Stan-the-man,” Richie perched his chin in his hand, leaning forward on his bike. “C’moooooon…”

“Fine!” Stan stood up and pushed the window shut firmly, disappearing from view a second later. When the front door of the house opened, it was to Stan and his father, both of them talking quietly. His father’s eyes roved over the group of them, narrowing when he spotted Richie. “I’ll be back before dinner,” Stan said.

“I’ll make sure he’s home, sir,” Henry sat up straight, raising a hand like he was in class. “I’m already making sure Eddie here gets home safely.”

“Alright,” Mister Uris nodded, meeting Stan’s eyes one more time. “You boys have fun and stay safe.”

He closed the door behind him.

“C’mon,” Stan muttered, picking up his bike from the lawn. “Let’s get out of here before he changes his mind.” He hopped on his bike and pedaled the fastest out of all of them, like he wanted to get away as fast as he could. Almost like something was chasing him.

“Did you have to promise you’d—”

“Shut _up_ , Richie,” Stan called over his shoulder. “He just wanted to make sure my homework was done. I told him where I was going and he allowed it.”

The four of them rode back to the Denbrough house together, a running conversation flowing around Henry. Despite how they spoke to each other, they seemed to be really good friends. Richie made shitty jokes and poked fun at them, but he seemed to know where the lines he couldn’t cross were. Stan seemed annoyed at Richie, often, but he also smiled when Richie made a joke about something.

Bill was still sitting on his porch when they came to a stop.

“Denbrough,” Henry got off his bike and walked up to him. “Told you I’d bring them here.” He dropped down next to him, nudging the untouched platter of cookies towards him. “Being alone sucks,” he lowered his voice as the three other boys stood back a way, like they knew he wanted Bill to be the only one he talked to for a moment. “And I know things are shit right now. These guys are your friends,” he glanced up at them and saw Richie poking Eddie’s cheeks, sticking his tongue out and squishing his palms against them. Stan had a hand over his mouth, trying not to laugh. “And they seem like pretty good ones.” He swallowed, coughing to clear his throat. “There’s not really anything I can say that’ll help, but I think you just need to know that. They’ll be here when you need them.”

Bill nodded, then looked down at his hands before leaning over and hugging Henry.

Making a face, Henry had his arms up in the air for a minute before he patted awkwardly at Bill’s back. He was the _worst_ at emotional shit. “I’ll be here too,” he decided on saying. “If you need someone to talk to. You’ve got your friends, they’re great. But if you want to talk to me, you can.”

He seemed to have done something good, if he went by Bill’s nod.

Rubbing gently at his back, Henry looked up at the other three. “C’mere.” He motioned at the stairs on Bill’s other side. All three of them came over, curling around Bill and each of them putting a hand over his.

The five of them sat there for a long while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, have chapter two. Time skipped to when the Losers plot is happening, but there will be flashbacks to the in-between with Henry and his mother.
> 
> We begin to see where the timeline diverges, too. Henry gets dragged in, panicked, to caring about the Losers. Watch the interactions with Stan and Bev in the future, too. Things change there. (Tiny spoiler: Do you know how much I love Stanley Uris?)


	3. Patching Up

He wasn’t sure how they’d convinced him to go with them.

More to the point, he wasn’t sure how the fuck he’d convinced Vic to go with him.

Henry watched, nervous, as Bill and Stan poked at something in the tunnel.

They had all gone down to the Barrens. He’d somehow managed to convince Vic to come with them – his friend was still standing near the top of the hill, too concerned with the thought of seeing a corpse to come any closer. “Shit,” Stan breathed the word out, his voice cracking, dragging Henry’s attention down again. “Don’t tell me that’s…”

“No,” Bill swallowed, his eyes focused on the shoe he held. “G-Georgie wore galoshes.”

Henry looked up at Vic again, waving him down. “I think that’s Betty Ripsom’s shoe,” he told the Losers.

They looked inside and proved him right. Her name was written, in somewhat faded ink from how long it had been in the water, along the inside of the shoe. Henry shivered and moved closer to Vic, staying as near him as possible. There was something in the air – it was summer, the middle of summer, and he could feel a bite of winter.

Maybe not winter.

Maybe it was something else. It felt like the few times he’d had to help chase coyotes away from the livestock on the farm when he was little. Something big and hungry, watching him, no normal logic, and no human morality. Something that would, without much provoking, try to eat him.

Like a coyote but bigger.

Vic grabbed his arm, keeping him from walking into the tunnel and dragging the boys out. “Who’s that?” he gestured off to the right. All of them listened, Richie and Bill emerging from the tunnel and coming to listen to the large splashes coming closer. A pudgy boy landed on his knees in the water, blood dripping out of his nose and a large burn on his arm. His shirt was ripped as well, but his eyes were wide and panicked when he noticed people standing in front of him.

“…Aren’t you the new kid?” Eddie spoke up after a minute, standing on his toes so his shoes were as far from being in the water as possible.

The new arrival nodded and Henry splashed through the water towards him, offering him a hand. He took it, cradling his burned arm to his chest. “Ben Hanscom,” he choked his name out, looking behind him when he heard more splashing in the distance. “I have to go,” he jerked away from Henry, nearly falling over again.

Henry caught him and helped him out of the river. “The fuck is happening?”

“Patrick Hockstetter,” Ben held up his arm. “He and a couple of his friends. He said he wanted to see what fat looked like when it burned.”

“Shit,” Vic looked over his arm, reaching out to turn his wrist over. “Kid, you need to get medicine on this, quick. This is a bad burn.” He turned to Henry. “When the fuck did Hockstetter start burning people, not just random shit he found?” he looked at the Losers. “We should get them back to town – if Hockstetter’s here, doing this, he might go after them.”

Henry nodded, then turned to the others.

They were already nodding in return. Somehow, in the time he’d been talking to them, they’d started to trust him. He wasn’t a kid like them, exactly, but he also wasn’t an adult. He was older and knew a bit more but he wasn’t trying to stop them from doing anything. He suspected that was why they liked him coming with them. Someone they could relate to and tell things to without the judgment their parents would give.

“C’mon,” Bill headed up the hill, leaving Betty’s shoe on the rocks near the tunnel. “He’s r-right.”

“We’re going to need lidocaine,” Eddie muttered. “Bandages, cotton swabs, sterilized pads,” he continued listing things off as Richie fell in step with him, his grey-water stick forgotten with the arrival of Ben. Henry followed after all of them, an arm held out like he would be able to sweep them up and run if he had to.

He’d spent several months hanging out with them, following along with their adventures and making sure they were safe. He and his mom seemed to be the only adults— close enough – to give a shit about what happened to all of them, not just one. Each of their parents cared about them and seemed to shun the others. His mom had found that out from him telling her and she had asked him to keep his eyes on them. Something was happening in the town, she had told him. The only other adult in town to give a shit was the homeschooled kid’s grandpa.

And he kept his grandson on the edge of town.

There was a mad rush back to their bikes, Bill riding Ben double on the back of his without Henry even having to ask.

They were good kids.

When he came back out of the pharmacy, Henry almost dropped the bag of supplies. He was alone, having shooed Eddie, Bill, and Stan back out to where Ben was sitting.

In the time since he’d gone inside, a new kid had appeared.

He knew who she was – he’d heard the rumors about her. He had done his best to ward them off. They reminded him too much of the way his father had talked about women, about his mom. Beverly Marsh, thirteen and watched closely by all the men in the town. Henry’s upper lip pulled back for a minute, angry and disgusted by all of them, before he smoothed his expression out and shifted the bag in his arm. “Guys?”

She turned to look at him first, her eyes wide. “Hi,” she swallowed, nervous, taking a step back from him.

Oh.

He crouched down in front of Ben, gesturing Eddie over. “You know how to do this, right?” he held the bag out. When Eddie nodded, he patted his shoulder, smiled at him, then stood up and leaned against the wall. Beverly seemed to calm down once he’d slouched a little, no longer taller than her by a head-and-a-half. “I know who you are, but I’m Henry,” he shoved his hands in his pockets.

She giggled, her face scrunching up.

Fuck, she was just a kid, just like the rest of them. “Bev,” she grinned when she said her name, offering out her hand. “You guys—” she laughed, glancing at Ben. “You sure they got the…Right Stuff to fix you up?”

Ben’s face flared bright red and he smiled, ducking his head down and looking at the bandages Eddie was wrapping around his arm.

“Well, I should go,” Bev held up her bag, shrugging. It was from the Keene’s pharmacy – she had to have been inside at the same time as he was. “My dad’s going to want me home soon.” Something flashed in her eyes at that, but she shook her head. Henry barely even heard Bill inviting her to the Quarry, too focused on controlling his temper.

The adults of Derry didn’t give a shit about the kids.

And Bev’s father seemed to be directing that at his own daughter, if he was reading things right. She’d left off her last name, the same way he did. He knew she lived with her father, her mother gone. The fact that she’d been nervous until he’d slouched down made him angry. Furious, actually. 

His mom had always told him to think through his anger, had gotten him to see a therapist for a while. Coping techniques had been something he’d been taught early.

Henry watched her go, glancing at Ben and Bill.

The both of them seemed to be watching her leave, eyes wide and cheeks pink.

Oh boy.

“…How did Vic know it was Betty’s shoe?” Eddie asked in a small voice, his eyes wide as he looked up at Henry.

“What?”

“In the Barrens,” Eddie glanced back to Ben, still patching him up. “Vic knew whose shoe it was. You two managed to give us an idea before we’d even looked at the thing. Well, before Bill and Stan looked at it – you two had better wash your hands before you eat anything, I swear to god – and you said it was Betty Ripsom’s shoe.”

“My mom always tells me to look out for the younger kids,” Henry crouched down next to him, tapping gently at Ben’s arm until the younger boy held it out towards him. Eddie’s bandages were neatly wrapped so far, with a couple more to go before he’d consider his job finished. “Ever since my dad left us, she’d tell me to look out for the younger kids. Tells me that something in this town doesn’t feel right – that there’s something dangerous here if we’re not careful.” He nodded, nudging Ben’s arm back into Eddie’s hands. “I remembered seeing a description of her clothes on one of the missing posters her mom made. What she was last seen wearing. I told Vic, just in case.”

“God,” Richie covered his face with a hand, shoving his glasses back up his nose. “What the fuck.”

“Like how we put what Georgie was wearing o-on the posters,” Bill swallowed, closing his eyes. Vic reached out and tapped his fist against Bill’s shoulder, then ruffled his hair until the younger boy nodded. “Mom al-always wrote down what we were wearing when we went somewhere. In…In case we got lost.”

Henry reached out, curling his hand around Bill’s wrist.

Bill squeezed his hand back, nodding as his eyes welled up. Stan nudged his shoulder against Bill’s, nodding when Bill looked at him.

God, he wished Vic would speak up. He wasn’t the greatest at emotional stuff, but he was trying to get better about it. Vic just somehow knew what to say, when to say it. At his side, Vic leaned closer to him, smiling softly, like he was trying to reassure Henry. As if he’d heard that thought, Vic cleared his throat. “Before I started hanging out with you guys, I was keeping an eye out for the missing kids. My mom’s a secretary at the police station, she’s the one who took the report on Betty in the first place.”

Ben looked up at the two of them. “What is _happening_ in this town?” he whispered.

“I…” Henry sighed. “I really wish I knew, kid.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And ever so neatly, Patrick Hockstetter becomes Pennywise's new toy. 
> 
> Shorter chapter this time, but I had to chunk it up like this to make the story flow a little better. Ben gets introduced! Next chapter, you get to see Mike and what happens to him as a result of Patrick being the nightmare to deal with.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know if anyone will read this but I thought I'd share it with you. 
> 
> I've jokingly called this the Steve Harrington effect -- sort of asshole adopts a passel of younger children. This is an AU Henry Bowers, raised by his mother. Their anger over what Butch did to them pops them out of Pennywise's control. Like in canon - Anger overrides Fear.


End file.
